In the Sengoku era the school served a second warrior court: the Later Hōjō at Odawara, whose patronage kept the Tsunahiro line forging hitatsura for the uchigatana age until the castle fell to Hideyoshi in 1590.
NihontoWatchNihontoWatchSummary This blade was signed by Shimada Sukemune(島田助宗). Sukemune belonged to Shimada school in the Suruga domain (today’s Shizuoka prefecture). Its foundation dates back to the mid-Muromachi period, and it was founded by Yoshisuke(義助). The first-gen Sukemune was the younger brother of Yoshisuke. The swordsmith’s name Sukeume lasted four generations, and they were active in sword-forging during the Tenbun-Kanbun era(1532-1673). We believe it was made by the early generation oSukemun from the Muromachi period. The first-gen Yoshisuke served a powerful feudal family named Imagawa. It is said that he received his maker’s name 義 from Imagawa Yoshitada. Shimada school interacted with other schools in Soshu swordsmiths living near Odawa castle in Kanagawa prefecture. The Suruga domain was vital for strong feudal lords such as Takeda, Tokugawa, and Hojo clan during the Sengoku Jidai (Warring state period). The swordsmiths in Shimada school received many orders from these strong feudal families. Considering the fact that this blade was registered in Shizuoka prefecture where Suruga domain was located back in the day, it is possible that the descendants of Samurai living there carefully passed it down to many generations. Soshu Den It is said that the generations of Sukemune mastered a particular sword-forging tradition called Soshu Den. Shoshu Den was born in the middle of the Kamakura period. Back then, the Yamato and Yamashiro traditions were highly developed, and there were a few renowned swordsmiths from those regions. However, the sword-forging practice was in its infancy in the Kanto area, where the Soshu region was located. At the beginning of the Kamakura government, which was established in 1185, the first Shogun, Minamoto Yoritomo, prioritized making a lot of rules to have its political stability. And he couldn’t afford to hire swordsmiths within the same region or train them. Therefore, the Kamakura government originally ordered weapons to the swordsmiths in the other areas, such as Yamato and Yamashiro. But, since the government was established, the demand for weapons increased exponentially in the government, and they had to figure out how to meet those demands from Samurai who served Kamakura shogunate. Then, the 5th head of the Shogun, Hojo Tokiyori, invited two renowned swordsmiths from other parts of Japan. They were Awataguchi Kunitsuna from Yamashiro province and Bizen Saburo Kunimune from Bizen province. And the 7th-gen Shogun Koreyasu Shino also invited Fukuoka Ichimonji Sukezane from Bizen province. It is said that those three swordsmiths played an essential role in creating the Soshu Den and making the foundation of the Soshu Den. Also another famous figure in the Soshu den is Intou Kunimitsu, an adopted son of Awataguchi Knitsuna. And Kunimitsu passed his excellent craftsmanship to Yukimitsu, his apprentice. And Masamune, one of the most famous swordsmiths in Japanese history, was an apprentice of Yukimitsu. And Masamune was the one that brought Shoshuden to nationwide fame. The tradition Masamune completed became an example of other swordsmiths who learned Soshu Den. Also, Soshu Den influenced many renowned swordsmiths during the Koto- Shinto era. One of examples is Inoue Shinkai from Osaka and Suishinshi Masahide from Edo. Tachi Based on where the signature is located and its characteristics, NBTHK judged it as a Tachi. Tachi was mainly used by an armored Samurai with one hand on horseback from the Heian period (794-1185 A.D.) until the early Muromachi period. TACHI was suspended loosely on the left waist with its edge facing the ground so that you could draw it faster to cut down soldiers on the ground. It is appraised as a Tokubetsu Hozon Token(特別保存刀剣) issued by NBTHK(Nihon Bijutsu Touken Hozon Kyokai:日本美術刀剣保存協会). *Please keep in mind that there are a few Kitae Kizu on the Mune (backbone of the blade). Tsuka and Menuki Gosan-no-Kiri (五三の桐) and chrysanthemum (菊) are designed on this Menuki. We will explain the significance of Gosan-no-Kiri in the Tsuba section. A long time ago, the chrysanthemum was used as a medicine for obtaining a long life in China, and it was brought to Japan with this thought in the Nara period (648-781). Chrysanthemum is one of the flowers which symbolizes fall, and people appreciate it very much since ancient times. As its petals form radially, the chrysanthemum has been likened to the sun. That is why this flower pattern is treated as the symbol of perpetual youth and longevity or good health. “Kiku no Gomon (菊の御紋)” is a kind of chrysanthemum pattern, and it has been used as the crest of the Emperor and the royal family in Japan so that it is well-known as a noble pattern. From the Kamakura (1185-1333) period to the Warring States period (1467-1615), the chrysanthemum crest was given as a reward from the Emperor back then to the warlords who made significant contributions. For example, Ashikaga Takauji (1305-1358), who became the first Shogun of the Muromachi Shogunate, cooperated with Emperor Go-Daigo (後醍醐天皇, 1288-1339) to dissolve the Kamakura Shogunate. And Takauji was given a chrysanthemum crest. In addition, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) was also given a chrysanthemum crest by Emperor Goyouzei. A theory says Hideyoshi was delighted and used this motif for furniture. At that time, the Emperor was regarded as God. Therefore, it was an irreplaceable honor for Samurais to receive the family crest from the Emperor. This is how the chrysanthemum pattern has a deep connection with Samurai culture. Tsuba and Habaki Gosan-no-Kiri Monyou (五三の桐文様) is the motif of this Tsuba. The Kiri (桐) pattern is generally composed of three standing straight inflorescences and three leaves. The number of flowers that are blooming at each inflorescence means the ranks of this design. It is also famous that one of the most popular Samurais in Japan: Toyotomi Hideyoshi used the Kiri pattern for his family crest. According to a theory, Hideyoshi used Omodaka (沢瀉, arrowhead) pattern as his family crest. However, Oda Nobunaga, a well-known military commander in the Warring States period, permitted Hideyoshi to use Kiri design. This plant pattern was once used by the imperial family and national leaders of the time. Today, this plant pattern is used as the crest of the Japanese Government. Gosan-no-Kiri Monyou (五三の桐文様) is a popular design that the paulownia motif is used. This pattern was once used by the imperial family and people in authority at that time. Today, it is permitted to use by ordinary households and is appreciated as their family crests. According to a tradition, Houou (鳳凰, Fenghuang, a kind of sacred beast) rests its wings at the paulownia tree; therefore, it has come to be regarded as a holy plant. Authentication Paper They authenticated the blade on Feb 21th in the 6th year of Reiwa (2024). They appraised it as Tokubetsu Hozon Touken, the blade especially worth preserving for Japanese society.
Offered by Samurai Museum
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Shimada (Suruga) · Suruga · around 1444-1449
Tōken Taikan top 31%
A katana now in Osaka, designated at the fourteenth Jūyō session in 1966, is judged in its commentary to be "sound in both ji and ha and thought to represent Sukemune's finest work"[[c:1]], and it gives the measure of the man. Sukemune is, with the mainstream Yoshisuke, one of the two principal names of the Shimada school of Suruga Province, a Muromachi workshop on the Tōkaidō between Mino and the late Sōshū hearths. The published sources place him as the younger brother of the founder Yoshisuke in the mid-Muromachi period, and the name carried that standing through several generations down into the shintō era. The reference works arrange those hands across a long run, citing Sukemune work as early as the Bun'an and Bunki eras and then a Sukemune of the Tenbun era, so the name spans the whole Muromachi century. Because the signature style does not separate the generations either, a signed Sukemune is read for its workmanship rather than assigned a number, and the date inscriptions, where they survive, do the work the mei cannot.
His characteristic hand is the connected gunome that the published sources name the school's own. Over the itame the temper is a gunome run together in series, crossed with gunome-chōji and pointed togariba, at times taking a box-shaped form, abundant nie lying through it with tobiyaki, kinsuji and sunagashi, the nioiguchi bright. Of the long katana designated in 2020 the NBTHK writes that "the hamon features the Shimada school's hallmark of connected gunome"[[c:2]] and reads its bright nioiguchi, kinsuji and sunagashi as "features that strongly express the characteristic manner of Sukemune"[[c:3]]. The boshi follows the midare, running midare-komi to a ko-maru with hakikake, on the largest blade strongly covered in nie and tending toward nie-kuzure. This is the manner the published record ties to the late Sōshū smiths, to late Seki and to the Senju group, and reads as close to the work of Mino and Ise.
The jigane is the steady foundation beneath the ha. The forging is an itame, well knit and at times dense, that overall flows and leans toward masame, ji-nie lying through it and chikei entering, with a tendency toward hada-dachi where the grain stands open. On the 2020 katana that jigane is described as a tightly forged itame, partly flowing and tending toward masame, the ji-nie finely granular yet densely applied and the chikei clearly visible, a Suruga reading of the Sōshū surface rather than a tight Bizen jigane. It is on this flowing, slightly standing steel that the nie activity of the edge is laid, and the finest of his blades are praised for the clarity that results, the bright nioiguchi and the streaming kinsuji and sunagashi together.
The designations show the Shimada shop's range of form. Three of the four with commentary are shinogi-zukuri katana, several with strong sakizori or a tachi-like koshizori, one of them an eighty-centimetre blade of robust, tachi-like make rich in hataraki; the fourth is a hira-zukuri tantō of orthodox, curvature-less form. On that tantō the manner shifts to the school's other register, a suguha mixed with small gunome over a flowing itame, sunagashi and kinsuji appearing, which the published sources read as work "made with an eye toward the manner of Shizu"[[c:4]], appraising the piece as older than the Tenbun Sukemune of the meikan. His horimono are a school feature carried with skill, bonji, a grass-script kurikara, a clawed ken, futasuji-hi closed with maru-dome and gomabashi, which the commentary ties to Muromachi carving in general and to the work of the Shimohara smiths.
What distinguishes Sukemune is best drawn from his own grounded traits. His is the connected gunome in abundant nie, with kinsuji and sunagashi over a flowing, masame-leaning itame, a provincial Suruga reading of the late Sōshū idiom that the published sources set beside Mino and Ise work; the Shizu-leaning suguha of the tantō is the deliberate exception, and the prominent horimono is the mark of the broader Shimada shop, shared with Yoshisuke and Hirosuke. Where a generational verdict is impossible the commentary turns to the blade, calling the Osaka katana the finest work of the name, sound in ji and ha, and fixing one hand within the long run by the blade rather than the signature. The last of his katana drew the further observation that, though signed on the sashi-ura in the manner of a tachi, it should be understood as an uchigatana, a reading the NBTHK reaches from the position of the mekugi-ana and the overall sugata.
Sukemune's designated record is modest in scale and entirely signed, four of his blades holding the Jūyō rank with his record reaching no higher tier, so his work is encountered as Jūyō and lower-ranked pieces rather than as patrimony held permanently out of reach. He carries a Tōkō Taikan value of 450 monme, a solid provincial standing rather than a first rank, in keeping with a respected one-province name. One blade of his is recorded in Imperial provenance, the kind of holding from which a Shimada work rarely returns to circulation. The number of designated works on record is small, and across the run of generations under one undivided name a securely fine example, of the soundness in ji and ha that the published sources praise in his Osaka katana, is the thing worth waiting for. Such a blade comes to market only from time to time, and when one does it is a good representative of a provincial school whose hand sits close to the late Sōshū tradition.
Where Sukemune stands among comparable artisans: across all of nihontō, and within tradition, era, and period. The tiers (Foremost · Leading · Major · Notable) weigh official designations from the NBTHK and Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs, together with historical honors of lasting repute such as the Sansaku and Meibutsu-chō.
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Soshu-den · Suruga
9 pieces on the market now
The Shimada school (島田) took its name from its base in Suruga Province, where it worked from the mid-Muromachi period along the Tōkaidō between the Mino hearths and the late Sōshū smiths of neighboring Sagami. The published sources place its founding generation in the Kōshō (or Kyōshō) era and trace its principal names without interruption down into the shintō period, with the same names continuing as late as the shinshintō era. Three smiths stand as the school's central hands: Yoshisuke (義助), held to be the principal mainstream name at the head of all Shimada work; Sukemune (助宗), recorded as the younger brother of the founder; and Hirosuke (廣助), placed as the son of the second-generation Yoshisuke. The oldest extant dated example, an Eishō 2 (1505) tantō by Yoshisuke, fixes the early corpus, and because the signature style does not separate the hands, a signed Shimada blade is read for its workmanship rather than assigned a generation. The Shimada smiths produced the working blades of the Muromachi century; one Hirosuke katana, a Kōshū-uchi work dated Eiroku 2 (1559), was held by Hara Mino Nyūdō Toratane of the Twenty-Four Generals of the Takeda, and the cut struck into the mune at the monouchi of a Yoshisuke katana drew a NBTHK remark that it speaks to martial use. Across the members the school reads in a single Soshu-den idiom inflected by Mino and Ise. The jigane the smiths describe is an itame, well knit and at times dense, that flows and leans toward masame, standing somewhat open in hada-dachi, with fine ji-nie lying through it, chikei entering, and a tonality the commentaries repeatedly call whitish; this flowing, slightly standing steel, rather than a tight Bizen surface, is what marks the Shimada hand for the eye. Upon it the smiths set a notare crossed with gunome, with ko-chōji and pointed togariba entering, ko-ashi, abundant nie, and sunagashi and kinsuji running through, the bōshi commonly midare-komi turning back rounded, at times with hakikake; tobiyaki and slight muneyaki appear, and on the larger blades the activity rises toward hitatsura in nie.
Sukemune's particular register is the connected gunome the NBTHK names the school's hallmark, while Hirosuke shows the most robust make, favoring a wide mihaba with sakizori and an extended kissaki. Against this typical midare every hand keeps a quieter exception: a hoso-suguha the commentary calls comparatively uncommon for Yoshisuke, and a suguha mixed with small gunome on a Sukemune tantō read as made with an eye toward the manner of Shizu. The carving tradition is shared throughout, bonji, suken, gomabashi, relief kurikara, and the figures of Marishiten and Fudō Myōō, with openwork sukashi-bori noted by examiners as an uncommon thing to find; the school also produced comparatively many yari, Yoshisuke's ōmi-yari among them. To kantei a Shimada blade is to read the late Sōshū idiom in a provincial Suruga register: the whitish, standing itame beneath a nie-laden notare-gunome with sunagashi, kinsuji, and frequent tobiyaki, set apart from a tight Bizen jigane and tied by the published sources to Sue-Sōshū, late Seki, the Senju group, and the work of Mino and Ise. Form sorts the manner: the broad Sōshū-leaning katana on one side, the school's tantō and wakizashi (often hira-zukuri with mitsu-mune, thick kasane, and a withered fukura kare) on the other. Among the members Yoshisuke is the name the sources reach for in describing the group, his finest katana and tantō praised for a jihada and hamon of clear, bright result; Sukemune's Osaka katana is judged his finest work; and Hirosuke's best pieces, one called hakubi, the best among its kind, with a suggestion he privately emulated Bizen Chōgi, number among the finest of the whole lineage. Dated and fully signed works such as those inscribed Shimada Hirosuke are particularly valued, the tangs anchoring the chronology of the later generations, and a rare collaborative blade between Hirosuke and Gensuke attests to the collegial working of the shop. Provenance reaches to the Imperial collection, Honma's inventory of which records works by Yoshisuke, Sukemune, and Hirosuke; with the Takeda general's blade and the documentary dated pieces, these holdings mark the standing of a respected one-province school whose hand sits close to the late Sōshū tradition. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Yoshisuke義助 | 1492-1504 | 6 |
| Yoshisuke義助 | 1455-1526 | 5 |
| Sukemune助宗 | 1444-1449 | 4 |
| Yoshisuke義助 | 1573-1592 | 3 |
| Sukemune助宗 | 1661-1673 | 1 |
Sōshū in the Muromachi period
In the Sengoku era the school served a second warrior court: the Later Hōjō at Odawara, whose patronage kept the Tsunahiro line forging hitatsura for the uchigatana age until the castle fell to Hideyoshi in 1590.
A Hozon-certified blade judged to show notably superior workmanship and a better state of preservation. The bar is higher: re-tempered blades and most unsigned Muromachi/Edo works are excluded.
The NBTHK (Nihon Bijutsu Tōken Hozon Kyōkai, the Society for the Preservation of Japanese Art Swords) is a public-interest incorporated foundation founded in 1948 and supervised by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs (Bunkachō); it is based at the Japanese Sword Museum in Tokyo. Its expert panels physically examine each submitted work (shinsa) and issue a certificate (kanteishō) ranking it by artistic and historical merit. NBTHK papers are the most widely recognized standard of authentication for Japanese swords and fittings.
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